Hawaiians brace for Hurricane Lane as governor declares state of emergency

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HONOLULU -- Hurricane Lane is poised to give Hawaii an unusually major encounter with a major cyclone -- and could batter the Big Island with rain and tropical storm force winds as early as Wednesday night.

The Category 4 storm's dangerous center could make landfall this week, but even if it doesn't, it should draw close to the islands Thursday through Saturday, bringing destructive winds and as many as 20 inches of rain onshore, forecasters said.

The state is bracing for a powerful punch: The governor has declared an emergency, and all public and charter schools on the Big Island and Maui County are closed until further notice.

"(I'm) filling up my bathtub with some water, hoping to board up my main windows in time," a shopper on the Big Island, Shana Bartolome, told CNN affiliate KHON on Tuesday.

The storm was in the Pacific about 315 miles south of the Big Island town of Kailua-Kona early Wednesday, with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph.

Lane is expected to weaken slowly through Friday, but it still is forecast "to remain a dangerous hurricane as it draws closer to the Hawaiian Islands," the National Weather Service's Central Pacific Hurricane Center says.

Hurricane Lane is a rare threat for Hawaii

Hurricanes rarely make landfall in Hawaii, as the Central Pacific does not see as many storms as the Atlantic or Eastern Pacific, and the Hawaiian Islands present a small target in the vast Pacific Ocean.

Only two hurricanes and two tropical storms have made landfall in Hawaii since 1959:

Even close calls are somewhat rare, with Hawaii getting a named storm within 60 miles of its coastline about once every four years on average.

Lane represented another kind of rarity: It was a Category 5 storm late Tuesday before weakening Wednesday morning.

As such, this was only the second time in recorded history that a Category 5 hurricane came within 350 miles of the state -- the first one being Hurricane John in 1994 -- the National Weather Service said.